


Sweet Relief

by herbailiwick



Series: How's the Diet? [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Food Issues, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic contains struggles with food and weight and guilting about weight gain and eating habits.</p><p>Mycroft has a weakness that Sherlock is not comfortable with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Relief

Sherlock doesn't understand why people get preoccupied with food. Some things taste good, others taste less good, but in the end it's all organic material that has been made fit for human consumption. And sometimes things don't even go that far and food poisoning occurs. 

Food is a bit stupid. It's simple. It's boring. But it's also dangerous.

Mycroft is supposed to be a paragon of control. It's Sherlock who can go ahead and wreak havoc, Sherlock who can terrorize and rebel. Mycroft is the one who nothing can affect much, normally, except Sherlock. And, Sherlock is discovering to his horror, food.

They're supposed to be good boys, or at least Mycroft is. Sherlock will get the attention he craves in any manner he can get away with. Mycroft is perfect—or, at least he should be. No one even knows, except Sherlock. No one else knows Mycroft's incredible weakness.

Food is so _basic_. How can Mycroft hold his head up high around Mum and Dad and then bury it in cake behind closed doors? Sherlock is disgusted with Mycroft, the more he realizes it. Mycroft will run grandmother's errands for a lolly. He'll beg an ice cream off fellow students. He _nicks_ biscuits from the kitchen.

So Sherlock, sad, lonely Sherlock who is starting to feel like food is pushing him out of Mycroft's favor, guilts Mycroft about it until he cries, and it feels very good. It probably feels as good to do that as it feels for Mycroft to bury his sorrows in sweets in the first place. And it bothers Sherlock to no end that he thinks Mycroft realizes the connection too.

He's not weak like Mycroft, is he? Food is stupid, after all. And he's just teaching Mycroft a lesson. Mycroft teaches him lessons all the time, and turnabout is fair play. 

"Are you quite happy now?" his big brother, an adult now, an overweight adult, asks, wiping tears from his eyes. He's stopped eating pudding. Sherlock knows he's been Not Good, but he's still angry that food can do what only Sherlock used to be able to do.

"No," he snaps at Mycroft. "Because you like the pudding more than you like me." It's stupid, and he knows it's hurtful and probably not correct or even logical, and he storms off when he says it, but he feels very young, younger than he is, which is young. And he feels all alone.

By the time he comes out of his room, Mycroft is gone and so is all of the pudding. Sherlock sits in Mycroft's empty chair and stares into the bowl, as if it holds secrets he can't even imagine.


End file.
